E3 2004: Rise of the Phantom

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One step closer to never leaving the living room.

By Rich Rouse

Some of you may have heard about Infinium Labs' project, the Phantom, while others have probably used that name solely to relate to products that don't ever see the light of day in this industry. Rest assured, the folks at Infinium are adamant that the "Phantom Lives," so why not take a closer look? We took some time to sit down with Jack Crouch, spokesman for the company, and get the low down on this newest industry to the home gaming market.

Most basically, the Phantom is a package deal PC gaming service designed to use existing broadband connections to stream game content directly to your favorite spot on the couch. The system runs on an embedded Windows XP architecture and provides users with the ability to browse available PC game titles they'd like to play. Upon selecting one, the title is streamed to the device's 40GB hard drive, thereafter allowing instant access to the game just as if you'd loaded it up on your overworked PC. It's important to note that players are able to jump into the action literally just a few seconds after beginning the steaming process, as the receiver only pulls down what is necessary to get you started before letting you begin. Then, as you make your way through the first few minutes of content, the game continues to download in the background. The end result is an ability to select a title, start downloading, and be off to the races far faster than installing the game out of a box on a "real" computer.

As you can see from the shots, the Phantom Receiver is a sleek looking box, perhaps constructed to sit in the entertainment center of your family room and look less like a gaming machine than a fancy DVD-player or stereo. However, the disguise quickly ends when you look on the other end of cord protruding from the front of the unit. The angled keyboard (and accompanying mouse) known as the Phantom Gaming Lapboard is the primary means of input to the device. We tried out a quick session of UT 2004 with this interface and found it to be quite appealing. The keyboard can swivel to accommodate righties or lefties, and even allows for that perfect amount of angle you need to rest your arm on the keyboard for long play sessions. Overall, the system does what it aims to do quite well, but of course there are a few questions.

Click image to enlarge.An obvious one is "so what's inside it?" The receiver itself houses an Athlon XP 2500+ with a 128MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra for graphics muscle. Furthermore, 256MB of RAM are included, which according to Jack is the equivalent of 512MB in a standard system, since none of the "unnecessary" normal Windows operations are sucking up memory in the Phantom, as they would be in the system under your desk. It's an impressive setup, and certainly took out anything we were shown with ease. The configuration seems capable of handling anything currently on the market, but that brings us to a couple important points.

Most gamers like to upgrade their PCs. It's part of the appeal to constantly tweak out your system with the newest gear, so you're better able to keep up with record-setting specs some of tomorrows games will bring. Unfortunately, this is impossible with the Phantom.

Click image to enlarge.And while the company states that they will more than likely offer accessories and eventually a "Phantom II" receiver to fit changing requirements in gaming, the costs for doing so may seem unrealistic to the wallets of Joe Gamer. The Phantom Gaming Service is subscription-based, costing users $29.95 a month to continue their living room gaming escapades. With a 2-yr agreement from the beginning, the hardware is thrown in for free. However, if you'd rather go month-to-month, you can purchase the receiver and lapboard combo for 200 clams. For all that, gamers can pick from the standard library of games (yet to be announced) and play them all to their hearts content. Alternatively, "premium" titles will also be offered at an additional cost. Users will be able to sample free demos of some of these, if they are offered by the developer, or can even choose to rent them for a time. Of course, the option to purchase them outright is always available, allowing access to the game whenever the player chooses for as long as they continue to subscribe to the service.

We're always excited to see companies try new things in the industry, and this is certainly a unique effort by Infinium Labs. However, there are certainly some questions that need answering, and those answers will probably only come with time. How many developers are on board? How long will these specifications hold up to the growing system requirements of future games? Is the demand for gaming from a Lazyboy enough to justify yet another monthly fee in the standard PC gamer's budget? We'll start to find out all of these things this holiday season when the Phantom launches. Until then, you're stuck in that same old, smelly office chair.